“Iloveyou.” The words rush out of so fast I wasn’t quite sure if I heard her right. I turn around in her arms almost immediately upon the words impact. Her face has gone from being firmly pressed against my back to being firmly pressed against my chest. She tightens her grip on me.

I suddenly don’t know what to do with my arms and my body reacts like a toy would when a child squeezes it. With every tightening motion she gives me, my arms jump up a little higher.

            “What?” I ask, not sure if I heard her correctly. My heart is beating a mile a minute and I think I might throw up-not because I don’t want to hear those words, but because I’m not ready. I wasn’t prepared for it, but then I guess is anyone ever ready? And judging based on how quickly she said it (if that is indeed what she said), I don’t think she was ready either.

            She’s not speaking. I can feel her grip on my waist tightening with every passing second that she stays clung to me. I lean my head down to the side to try to see her face but when I do this she turns her face into my chest. Can she breathe?

            “_______-ah! Please repeat what you said,” I say to her. I can feel her breathe through my shirt as she mumbles something quietly to herself. Her hands grip my shirt in the back. Okay. What is happening?

            I take my hands and put them on the sides of her face and try to peel it away from my chest. She’s resisting. I can’t take this suspense any longer. Did she really say that? I hold her face so that she is looking straight into my eyes. She’s crying.

            “_______-ah! What’s wrong?” I say franticlly. Her arms release in defeat and I crouch down so that my face is on an even level with hers. I keep my hands on her face.

            “I am so sorry,”

            “What are you apologizing for?” I ask. She grabs my wrist and tries to pull me towards the door. She goes to open it but I stop her with my free hand. I press my back against the door. “What are you apologizing for?” I ask again, more firmly. She doesn’t respond. I decide to come right out and ask her. “Did you say you love me _______-ah? I didn’t hear you before,” I can hear it in my own voice now though. I know that I heard her, and I heard her correctly. Oh God. My heart starts an assault on my chest plate and I don’t know if I am going to make it out of this room alive tonight.

            Suddenly I find myself attaching my lips to hers again and I am walking her back to the bed. She is taken off guard and is stumbling over herself but I don’t slow down. The back of her legs hit the bed and she falls back. I prop my knee up on the bed for a second time this night and continue to kiss her. She tries to pull away but I hold my authority over her lips and I claim them to be mine.

            The press of my kiss has her falling onto her back on the bed. I crawl up onto the bed completely now and I have my legs on either side of her body. “Say…it…again…please…” I say in between my desperate kisses, my forearms holding me up while my hands rummaging through her curls a if I will find her words lost somewhere within them.

            She manages to break away from me for a second, pressing her hands against my chest to keep me from kissing her. Her eyes look confused. “You mean…you are okay with that?” she asks me.

            It has been almost two months since she has arrived in Korea. To most, that may seem like a short amount of time. To me, it feels like forever-and I want forever to continue for as long as it is willing to last. I have practically spent every waking moment with this woman and I have never had a single dull moment. Never in this entire time have I not enjoyed myself, regretted having her in our dorm, or disliked anything she has done. It has been almost two months, and she is the most precious thing I have ever had enter my life next to my Mother.

            I didn’t realize it myself until she said those words. It wasn’t that I didn’t hear her; it was the fact that my